


The Taste of Blood

by Morpheus626



Series: Sledgefu Vampire AU [1]
Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:08:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25064398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: A Vampire AU inspired by MCR and Only Lovers Left Alive.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Series: Sledgefu Vampire AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815268





	The Taste of Blood

“I think we should call my dad,” Eugene touched the mirror he was looking into, waiting for his reflection to appear, but it didn’t. “We’re both obviously sick. I mean…I can’t even see my reflection, and I know it’s there. It has to be.” 

Snafu moved behind him and peered into the mirror. “Where? I don’t see mine either.” 

“We’re both losin’ it,” Eugene muttered miserably. He didn’t want to call his dad, hadn’t even tried since he’d left to find Snafu in New Orleans. But he also didn’t want to go to any of the local doctors, and as it was they’d both started to develop an intense sensitivity to sunlight. Even if they’d wanted to see a doctor in town, they’d have to somehow convince one to make a house call at night. 

He moved back to the couch, where they’d both been sleeping for the past week since the trouble had all started, and picked up his glass of water. Neither of them could keep anything down, but they kept trying water in the hopes of at least being slightly hydrated. 

He sipped, and immediately gagged and brought it back up, nearly choking as his stomach contracted violently at the water inside of it. 

“Baby,” Snafu whimpered softly, pulling him gently back onto the couch. “No more water. Just gonna make yourself more sick.” 

“That isn’t possible,” Eugene protested. “We’re sick, so we need fluids. Give me your wrist, we can at least do a pulse check.” 

“Alright Florence,” Snafu sighed and held out his wrist. They’d been doing these checks all week, with their pulses getting fainter and fainter with each passing day. Eugene was worried, but he didn’t know what he could possibly do to try and fix it. Nothing was working, and they both looked worse with every hour. 

“What the fuck,” Eugene spat, and moved up Snafu’s arm, then to his neck, searching for a pulse anywhere. Nothing. 

“Check me,” Eugene said, his hands shaking at the thought of what Snafu was (or rather wasn’t) going to find. 

Snafu did the same, moving from pressure point to pressure point, anywhere, searching for a pulse. “Uh. Eugene.” 

“I know, I know, I know,” he felt like he couldn’t breathe, and suddenly noticed how stiff the air felt in his lungs. The air went in and out, and he was still breathing, but it felt…off. “This isn’t possible. We’re dreaming. Or dead. Or something.” 

“I think we are dead,” Snafu said quietly. “I think I know what’s wrong.” 

“I gotta call my dad, now. Before we pass out and-” 

“Eugene,” Snafu interrupted, and grabbed a hold of his hands, just tight enough to keep him sitting on the couch. “You aren’t gonna wanna believe me. And that’s fine, cause I don’t wanna believe me either. But…you remember how we brought Hugo home late last week?” 

Eugene did. It had been a bit spur of the moment, but they’d been talking to Hugo for the past few months, meeting up with him most nights to hang out. It had always edged up near wanting to bring him back to their bed, but it had taken them until Friday of that last week to finally feel brave enough to ask him to come back home with them. 

“What do you remember from that night?” 

Eugene blushed. There was a lot he remembered, a lot of fun and good things. But he couldn’t remember much after. 

“I know I found a weird rash on my neck. Figured Hugo and you were just overly enthusiastic about the hickeys.” 

Snafu shook his head. “Still got the rash?” 

Eugene moved his collar to show it off. Two small red dots, evenly spaced. 

Snafu undid the first few buttons of his shirt and showed off the same. 

“Okay, so Hugo was a little rough. What’re you gettin’ at, sweetheart?” Eugene laughed. 

“We’ve never seen Hugo during the day. He bar tends some nights, but otherwise he doesn’t work. He dresses like he’s at least five years behind everyone else, and his teeth are…well, you’ve seen them,” Snafu continued. “I…this is everything my family made fun of growing up. All the ‘spooky’ parts of the city that the tourists fall for. But…” 

“But what?” 

“Some folks always used to warn about vampires. The city’s old, and you can melt right into it. Where else would you go if you couldn’t die and wanted somewhere you could just be and party or hide away or do whatever else you wanted?” Snafu asked. 

“Are you saying you think Hugo’s a vampire?” 

Snafu looked at the floor, and Eugene sighed internally over how pale he looked. How pale they both looked. Whatever this was, it was eating them alive. 

“And you think he turned us, but it’s just now…taking full effect or something?” 

“Don’t say it like that,” Snafu protested. “You think I like thinking that this is what it is, what we’ve got? This wasn’t my first option for a diagnosis.” 

“Okay, I’m sorry I just…you know how it sounds. I know you do.” 

Snafu nodded, sighed, and dropped his head into his hands. “There’s ways to find out. I mean…it’ll feel silly, but if we do some of these tests, and then it turns out it isn’t this, then we can move past it.” 

“Fair enough,” Eugene agreed. “What tests do you know of?” 

“Well, we failed the first one. No reflection. Failed the second one. Can’t keep any food or water down. Failed the third one. Don’t have a pulse anymore. I’ve got one more, but you aren’t gonna like it,” Snafu replied. He went to the fridge and pulled out the meat they’d picked up from the butcher on Monday. 

It slowly dawned on Eugene what the test was, and his stomach turned. “Oh no.” 

“Oh yes,” Snafu said, slicing into the meat with a knife from one of the kitchen drawers and draining the little bit of blood that came out into two glasses. “C’mere.” 

“I don’t think I can…” Eugene said. It looked repulsive, thickly settled at the bottom of the glass. 

“It’s old blood, but nothin’ we can do about that,” Snafu said, and handed over one of the glasses. “Bottoms up, darlin’.” 

He tossed it back like a shot after Snafu tossed back his, grimacing at the sensation of the blood as it slid down his throat. 

“Now what?” 

“We haven’t been able to keep anything down, so this should come up too,” Snafu replied. 

They stood at the kitchen counter and waited. And waited. And waited. 

“Jesus,” Eugene whimpered, and dropped to his knees, hiding his head against them as he wrapped his arms around himself. “Snaf-” 

“I know,” Snafu interrupted softly, and pulled him up to standing again. “Come on. Back to the couch we go. We’re gonna be alright.” 

“No, we aren’t,” Eugene heard himself whisper, horrified. “What the fuck, what the fuck what the-” 

“Shhh,” Snafu interrupted. “Can’t do nothin’ about this if we panic.” 

“We’re dead,” Eugene hissed. There was no other way around it. He was walking, talking, feeling the panic but with none of the usual heart-pounding. Because his heart no longer beat. Because they’d fucked a vampire, and now they were dead. 

“I know,” Snafu was alarmingly calm, and it made Eugene itchy to watch. As much as he valued Snafu being able to be cool and collected, he also couldn’t bear to be the only one freaking out. 

“We have to find Hugo,” Snafu continued. “May as well go straight to the source. I know going out sounds like shit right now, but we can do this.” 

They dressed, just barely presentable to be out of the house, and wandered down to the nearest bar. The sun had just recently gone down, but Eugene missed it. If this was all real, and he really had already had his last moment in the sun, then he wished he could have somehow known. He would have enjoyed it more. 

Hugo was behind the counter, working. But he looked like he wanted to jump the counter as he caught sight of them. 

Eugene let Snafu take charge of the situation. He was too weak, too tired to do much more than stand by Snafu and lean against him. 

“Hugo. We gotta talk,” Snafu called across the bar. 

Hugo winced as they stepped up to the bar counter. “You guys look like shit.” 

“Yeah. Feel like you might know somethin’ about that,” Snafu said. “Wanna take a moment in the back room with us so we can sort this out?” 

Hugo sighed. “Fine.” 

He led them to the back room, and Eugene let himself collapse onto the couch in the room with a groan. He’d felt better after the glass of disgusting, sludgy blood, but whatever effect it had given him had worn off. 

“I thought I had drained you both completely. You should be dead,” Hugo said, staring at them in amazement and confusion. 

“We are dead, asshole,” Eugene barked. 

“I mean…not dead like me. Completely dead. Not getting up and looking for blood to drink dead. Speaking of, have you guys been feeding? Because you look awful,” Hugo said. 

“Wow, thank you for again tellin’ us we look horrible after doin’ this to us,” Snafu spat as he dropped into a wooden chair near the couch. 

“I didn’t mean to,” Hugo protested. “I was going to just kill you both. I hadn’t fed in weeks…it was nothing personal, I swear.” 

“Hugo…this is is why you’re still single. I swear to fuckin’ god…” Snafu muttered. “Nothin’ personal. Jesus.” 

“I’m sorry, I really am,” Hugo continued. “Look, I can help you adjust to this. It’s the least I can do, and it’s what my maker did for me. Granted, he was also well off and not bar-tending to pay rent, but-” 

“Boo-fucking-hoo for you,” Eugene scoffed. “I’d say this is the least you can do.” 

Hugo sighed. “Clearly, whatever we had is gone. So I’ll do this. I’ll give you a list of places folks like us-” 

“Vampires,” Snafu interrupted. “I wanna hear you fucking say it.” 

“Vampires,” Hugo said. “Places where vampires like us can meet up for resources, help when you’re new and learning how to feed and how much to feed, things like that. I’ll give you my phone number, but you call me; I won’t call you. You only call if you’re comfortable with doing so or really need immediate help, okay?” 

Hugo grabbed a piece of stationary from a desk near one wall of the back room, and started to jot down the various places and people they could use as resources, and as he listened to the pen scratch Eugene’s heart sank. 

No more sunny walks in the park, or sunsets watched in between making out with Snafu. No more dinners they cooked together, learning new recipes. They’d have to quit their jobs, and find new ones with only night shifts, or they’d lose the house. No traveling, unless they were willing to drive all night while knowing they for sure had somewhere to hide during the day. 

And more killing. If they wanted to survive, there would have to be more killing. 

“For now…give me five,” Hugo said and handed Snafu the paper before ducking out of the room. He returned with one of the other bartenders, who calmly bared his neck to Snafu as he knelt down near him. 

“What the fuck is this?” Snafu scoffed. 

“Dinner,” Hugo spat. “Unless you wanna keep looking and feeling like death.” 

“We are dead!” Eugene screamed, forcing himself up off the couch even though every limb protested the effort. He strode towards Hugo faster than he intended to, unsure if it was his new state of being or his anger carrying him forward. He pushed him up against the nearest wall, and hissed. “We’re dead and it’s your fucking fault and-” 

He was suddenly incredibly aware of blood in Hugo’s veins, and before he could stop himself he latched onto Hugo’s neck, effectively stealing his dinner from within him. 

“Get him fucking off of me!” Hugo was screeching, caterwauling, but Eugene held tight onto him, hating how much he enjoyed the feeling of his now much sharper eyeteeth sinking into Hugo’s flesh, emptying his dead veins of his last meal. 

“Eugene! Enough!” Snafu pulled him away, and Hugo dropped to the floor, whimpering. 

“He deserved it,” he huffed. 

“I know,” Snafu said. “But what good is killin’ him gonna do us, huh? None. Let him live with the knowledge. I guarantee that’s worse than bein’ all the way dead.” 

“Neither of you are even up to my usual standard,” Hugo scoffed, still on the floor. The other bartender was staring at him, but made no move to retrieve him. “That’s what I get for fucking ugly goddamn-” 

It was his turn to hold Snafu back as he tried to race towards Hugo, shouting abuse right back at him, how he was a shitty fuck, how he was lucky they’d even allowed him near them to begin with. 

He dragged Snafu outside, regretting that he’d lost his cool. 

But he did feel better, with the blood he’d taken from Hugo. 

“Here,” he offered Snafu his wrist. “You’ll feel better. If we both feel a little healthier, then findin’ all of these people and places’ll be easier.” 

Snafu pulled him into a dark corner near an alley, and kissed him hard before moving his wrist up to his mouth. The feeling of Snafu’s teeth slipping into his wrist was something else, painful but not so much to make him do more than wince. It was almost erotic, especially when Snafu looked up at him, still drinking, his lips locked against the skin of his wrist. 

Which at least confirmed one thing he’d been mildly worried about, regarding blood flow. He didn’t know how it could still work, but he wasn’t going to question it when he had Snafu with blood on his lips, pulling him close and rutting against his hard cock. 

“Let’s go home,” Snafu murmured into his neck. “We can check out everything Hugo gave us tomorrow night.” 

Eugene nodded, but used a hand to carefully pull Snafu’s face back up towards his, and gently, with just the tip of his tongue, licked the drying blood from the corners of Snafu’s mouth before kissing him. 

He had figured it wouldn’t be a jubilant walk home, but he had expected to at least feel better, having gotten confirmation of it all. But he didn’t. He was tired and hungry despite having fed off of Hugo, and wanted nothing more than to fuck until the morning or until they were both too tired and sore to move, whatever came first. 

By the time they got inside, however, he was only half-hard and he could tell Snafu was just plain exhausted. They dropped onto the couch after making sure the door was locked and the windows were all still tightly covered with blinds and newspapers they’d taped over them, and Eugene knew they’d both be asleep soon. There would be no calling into work; he couldn’t keep his eyelids open let alone get up to go to the phone and call them both in. 

What he could manage was to wrap his arms around Snafu, and try not to cry when he didn’t have the familiar sound of Snafu’s heartbeat to lull him to sleep. But he still had Snafu’s hand squeezing his, and it was just enough to work in place of the heartbeat.


End file.
